Fury burned in my veins, so icy-hot I wondered briefly if it was the magic of the bond sparking.
“I know, but have mercy, my queen,” he pleaded weakly, staring up at me with barely concealed hatred in his dull, gray eyes.
Did he really think he was that good of an actor? The second I took my sword away, he’d attack. His back was against the wall for breaking our law and stealing a human from our southern territory. It had been years since we’d had to hunt down a drackya and dole out justice.
I bared my teeth at him as my jaw clenched. “Do you think you’re above the other drackya that met their own fate for the lives they destroyed? That you deserve to be released?”
The need to skewer him here and now was strong, but I resisted the bloody urge, forcing myself to take deep breaths.
“Are you okay, darling?”
The concern in Theo’s voice served as the perfect grounding point for my frazzled emotions.“I’m fine. It’s just bringing up old wounds.”
“No,” the criminal answered, dropping the thin facade and allowing his full disgust for me to bleed onto his face as it twisted into a sneer. “I just thought you a stupid bitch.”
Kaida and Theo let out low, warning growls from behind the drackya, their large forms menacing and providing me backup. I held my free hand up, halting them from ripping his head off for insulting me. That was one thing about my boys—they didn’t allow anyone to disrespect me.
A chilling laugh fell from my lips as I moved the tip of my sword up his throat to rest under his chin, forcing it up more as I stared down at him. “I didn’t become the queen of all of Andrathya—humans, drackya, and dragons alike—by being a stupid bitch.”
My father had conceded the throne quickly to Theo and me shortly after our return from Sanctum. We’d traveled there after we discovered his plans to attack the drackya, thinking he could catch us, unsuspectingly. Brenson had been integral to feeding us the information from the inside, after rising in rank to attend council meetings.
I rolled the hilt of my sword in my hand as I grinned at the memory.
Well, perhaps conceded wasn’t the correct term. I’dtakenmy birthright from him, with my dragons forcing him off of the throne, cowering and shaking in fear like the pathetic man he was. It was insane, to think of the dutiful princess I’d been the last time I’d seen him, being taken by our then enemy for the hopes of doing right by our people.
When I’d sat in the throne he’d warmed up for me, watching him oscillate between pleading for me to understand andapologizing for the wrongs he had done to me, I’d only had two words for him:Thank you.
Because of his disregard for my life and the marriage he’d forced me into, I was exactly where I needed to be, living a life of love that I would have never been able to find if I’d stayed. After making peace with realizing I could both hate him and be thankful for his actions concurrently, I’d told him to take my mother and leave. I didn’t care where they went, as long as it wasn’t in Andrathya.
The human woman trembled at my side, bringing me back to the present, hugging the scraps of her bloody dress to her body that his talons had cut into when he’d snatched her. She was brave to stay here after we’d rescued her, with two fearsome dragons still on either side of the drackya who had taken and harmed her. It was still odd to see Kaida full-grown, bigger than Theo now. He’d always be our baby, though I’m sure the woman next to me wouldn’t view him as such.
I expected her to flee, but as I observed her, there was a defiant blaze in her gaze as she looked at the sniveling man beneath my sword. It would serve her well as she forged a path ahead after being attacked.
“Our tribunal agreed to exile those in the past who did this,” I informed her, watching her closely to see her reaction. “It serves as an extended death sentence, forcing them into the other kingdoms’ lands, where their dragons will see an undine and attack. It is now law throughout Andrathya. He knew the consequences for what he did to you.”
She nodded once at me, still keeping her eyes trained on the drackya. “So that is what will happen to him?”
“The first thing I will do is kill you before I leave,” he spat at her. “If you would have just been quiet and accepted the bond, I wouldn’t be in this position.”
Therewere the words I needed to hear to forgo allowing him a meager existence in exile.
I pulled my sword back, smirking at the confusion clouding his eyes. Sweeping my blade down, I took his head from his shoulders before wiping the blood off on the grass to the best of my ability before sheathing it.
The woman let out a startled gasp, taking steps backward as the head rolled toward her feet, his long dark hair collecting twigs and leaves as it did. Her wide brown eyes swung to me, searching for answers it seemed as her mouth opened but no words came.
“I find it interesting he thought me stupid,” I mused, as my dragons circled to stand at my back, “considering if he’d polished up on his knowledge, he’d know that the subsection to that law is that exile is only given to the drackya that accept the verdict without further harm being incited.”
I felt no regret over the path Theo and I had agreed to, to seek justice for my people’s lives lost before the curse was broken. Forming a tribunal had been easy, already having trusted allies that we knew would take the positions seriously, helping us see all sides and coming to joint decisions. Together, Theo, Alstrid, Sinda, Brenson, Lucius, Tillie, and I had decided exile to be fair.
Mira had declined our invitation, far too invested in her position as commander, the first woman to hold the title. After her meteoric rise through the ranks, we’d finally achieved our joint dream of training other women to join our army. The hopes were to never need our now-strong forces, but I had the utmost faith that we’d now be prepared, as our humans and dragons found their bonds as riders resurfacing.
To Theo’s utmost dissatisfaction, Brenson had proved worthy of a rider bond, leading the charge in helping others become fearsome pairs that now watched over our borders.
As king and queen, Theo and I traveled between the southern and northern castles, spending half of the year in each, but thankfully in our absence, those on our tribunal helped keep a watchful eye, upholding the new laws we’d all created.
“I shouldn’t find it so incredibly alluring to see you behead someone, considering I am not innocent myself.”
While my husband felt immense guilt over letting the women he’d released into the wild, thinking they’d return to us, that guilt had only grown over the years. He truly understood the depth of being alone in this world, every time a report came from our patrols, that they’d found an exiled drackya, dead at Andrathya’s southern border.
